The Glenwood Park Sustainability Story

Glenwood Park was founded in 2003 as a model community featuring environmental sustainability and New Urban design. Glenwood Park started life as an abandoned 28-acre brownfield site, 85% of which was covered by impervious concrete surfaces and other contaminants that supported no trees and from which stormwater run-off was out of control. However, located beside a major Interstate and within 2 miles of downtown Atlanta, the site was ideal for a sensible, Smart Growth, urban in-fill development. Its unique, award winning urban design and high quality architecture have attracted a wonderful community of residents dedicated to a sustainable urban living experience.

The new community has attracted several filmmakers and television commercial directors who have produced their work in the beautiful place that Glenwood Park has become. Several festivals, including the City of Atlanta’s 2008 Earth Day Festival, Hotoberfest Beer Fesitval, and EarthShare of Georgia’s Party in the Park have all been staged at Glenwood Park. Currently, over 194 households (about 375 residents) and 17 unique businesses (office and retail) call Glenwood Park their home.

Green Building Statistics for Glenwood Park

EarthCraft Construction at Glenwood Park over the last two years (194 occupied homes averaging 2,153 sf) has prevented 5,276,785[*] pounds of CO2 from entering the Earth’s atmosphere, and 7,556,256 gallons of potable water have been conserved. Over this same period of time, $226,687 was saved by the Glenwood Park community and the equivalent of 86[†] cars each year were pulled off the road (also the carbon off-set equivalent of 1800 new trees over their entire life span).

One of the original EarthCraft Community Pilot Projects (2nd highest score of 6 pilots)

Green Street Green Building Factoids

2) Green Street salvaged and reused 800,000 lbs of granite ruble blocks onsite at Glenwood Park, enough material to build all of the walls in the central park out of granite.

3) Green Street salvaged and reused 30,000,000 lbs (or 41,5000 Cubic Yards) of wood chips, which were converted into energy in a waste-to-energy plant in Alabama. This produced enough electrical energy (assumes 33% transmission loss factor) to power 1355 average size homes for an entire year (or over 2500 smaller apartments or condos)!

4) At Glenwood Park, Green Street harvests approximately 35,000 gallons of water per week of well water to irrigate central parks and street trees, avoiding any use of potable water from the City of Atlanta for its drought-resistant landscaping. This saves 1.82 million gallons of water per year!

5) Glenwood Park has nearly 1000 trees and thousands of other plants, flowers, and shrubs creating shade, comfort, and beauty for its residents while also absorbing thousands of gallons of stormwater and significantly reducing heat island effects. No trees existed on site at the start of the development.

6) Based on their EarthCraft design, Glenwood Park homes collectively save over 1000 Megawatts of energy per year. That is enough energy to run another 81 households for a year and is the equivalent of removing 151 cars off the roads of Atlanta in terms of air pollution every year!

[*] The national average output rate for coal-fired electricity generation was 2.095 pounds CO2 per kWh in 1999.

[†] Number of gallons of gasoline is multiplied by the emissions factor of 19.6 to convert to pounds CO2 (750 x 19.6) = 14,700 pounds per vehicle per year. These emissions factors come from the Energy Information Administration.